


a little chaos

by fluffysfics



Series: the most infuriating seventy seven years of his life [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection, it’s Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms time again!, mild depictions of violence, the 1990s, the Master’s time on Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29846067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: It’s 1995, and the Master is handling his return to England...badly.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: the most infuriating seventy seven years of his life [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2147559
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	a little chaos

Late August of 1995 finds the Master with a bloody nose, laughing hollowly as he stumbles out into the hot summer night. 

The blood is entirely his fault. His nose is probably broken, actually; drunk human men hit _hard_ when they catch him flirting with their girlfriends. Or their boyfriends. He’s not fussy. It’s never out of genuine interest; they’re humans, how could he possibly be interested? No, he’s just in it for the chaos. 

Grabbing onto the side of the bar he’s just been thrown out of, the Master drags himself around into a back alley. The pain in his nose is _hot_ , intense- there’s a metallic stream of blood in the back of his throat. He sniffs experimentally. His head spins hard enough that he almost falls to the ground, and he cackles delightedly. 

He _could_ go to a hospital. He’s tried that a couple of times; let them hook him up to machines, watched their bafflement as they saw two hearts. That had been fun- what had been even more fun was letting his hands glow with golden light, feeling his injuries heal themselves- and then catching the doctors and nurses before they could dart for the door, turning his best hypnotic gaze on them, and cheerfully informing them that no matter how hard they tried, they’d never be able to tell another person what they’d seen. 

He’s back here in London for chaos. And he’s doing an absolutely _fantastic_ job at causing it, he thinks.

The Master wills golden light to flow to his fingers. It flickers, and sparks out- he scowls, banging his hands together a few times until they glow properly, and then bringing both hands to his nose. He grabs it firmly, wrenching it back into position with a howl of pain that echoes through the alley and sets all the dogs in the closest residential street off in a chorus of sympathy barks. 

That taken care of, he slumps back against the wall, breathing hard. 

Twenty five years left on Earth. He wonders if he’ll be able to keep this up that whole time, or if his tank will run dry and he’ll be forced to regenerate properly. Maybe that would earn him some sympathy from the Doctor. _Look at me_ , he imagines himself saying. _Your favourite species killed me- or maybe they did it ten times over. Still like them now?_

She probably still would, actually. 

The Master slams his fist into the wall, not bothering to take care of the bruises and the split knuckle it gives him. A little pain is good; it keeps him sharp. Keeps him angry. It’s better than the alternative. 

The sudden sound of footsteps makes him startle, and he lifts his head- it’s just a human, though. Not the one who’d punched him in the face. Just some very surprised-looking young man who had clearly expected to be alone out here. 

“Jesus, dude. You made me jump. Out here looking like you just lost a _bunch_ of fights.” The human pauses. “Did you...?” 

The Master, plenty surprised enough at actually being talked to, glances down at his shirt. It’s kind of covered in blood. Oops. He shrugs, and he’s about to push past the boy and be on his way _somewhere_ when he stops, because the boy is digging in his pocket and now he’s...being offered a cigarette. 

Slowly, he takes it, giving it a somewhat wary look as if it might explode. In his experience, humans aren’t nice to random bloody people in alleyways. Especially not ones who are uncommunicative and scowly. 

The young man laughs. “It’s not gonna bite you, man. Look, I’ll take it back if you don’t smoke. Just trying to be nice.” 

The Master doesn’t really smoke anymore. He used to, bodies and bodies ago, when humans considered it the height of refinement. But maybe what he needs right now is something warm filling his lungs, a faint chemical buzz to calm him down for the night. It’s been a while since he’s slept, he thinks to himself. Every day he finds himself wandering the streets, plotting, and every night ends up somewhere loud and _angry_. He hasn’t been back to his flat for nearly a week. That’s been happening more and more, this last year. It’s a good thing he’s not actually paying any rent for it. 

He sticks the cigarette between his teeth. The young man shrugs, reaching up to light it for him. One of his fingers brushes against the Master’s cheek- it takes a great deal of effort not to flinch, or to press desperately against his hand. 

He draws in a deep breath, holds it, and lets the grey wisps of smoke curl up from his throat and out into the night. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly. 

“Ey, he speaks after all. No problem. You got a name?” 

The Master raises an eyebrow. “No,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’ve gone through life completely without one.” To be fair, that’s not entirely inaccurate when it comes to his life on Earth. He’s had so many names that he might as well have none at all. 

“Well. I’m Ben,” the young man says, lighting himself a cigarette as well. The Master nods, quietly running through a mental list of all of the Doctor’s known associates. The only Ben he can think of is much older than this, which means...this is an entirely random human, who is being genuinely kind to him. That’s awfully rare. 

“Thank you, _Ben_.” 

“Not a problem, dude. You okay, by the way? What with all the...the blood. And the sulking behind a bar.” Ben takes a step closer, nudging his shoulder very lightly against the Master’s. It’s a friendly gesture. Comforting. _Strange_. 

“Um...” It should be easy to answer with something casual. _Yeah, just a rough night_. But the words won’t quite come. The Master finds himself staring at the brick wall opposite him, a sudden lump in his throat. 

Ben gives him another gentle nudge. “Hey. C’mon, what’s on your mind? Problem shared is a problem halved, all that.” 

The Master thinks about the blood soaking into his shirt. He thinks about the hundreds of times in the last nine years that a night has ended like that. He thinks about twenty five years left to live, the glint in the Doctor’s eyes as she’d stranded him here. _Nothing_ is okay about any of this. He’s tired. 

“I’m living my life out, waiting for someone who hurt me, and I don’t know how to stop,” he says softly. That’s the root of it, deep down. Everything that he does is for her. Even as he runs wild through London, he can’t keep his mind off of what the Doctor would think of him. How quickly he would stop all of this and come to heel if she gave the order. 

“Not what I expected, given the state of you,” Ben says, making another vague gesture. “But, uh...sorry, dude. Who are they?” 

The Master takes another long drag from his cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs until he can hardly resist the urge to cough it all back up. He sighs heavily, watching a mushroom cloud of whitish-grey puff up towards the sky. 

“Have you ever loved someone so much that you feel like they’re burned into your heart? A proper burn, too, one that hurts and stays raw for too long, and even when it’s all scar tissue it still pulls and stings sometimes. A lot of the time. And there’s nothing you could possibly do about it except claw your own organs out to get rid of the pain, but you can’t do that, because you’re a _coward_?” 

For a good solid minute, Ben just stares. 

Then- “Uh, no. Don’t think I have. Sorry, though.” He nudges his shoulder against the Master’s again, and for a moment, the Master is flooded with the crazy urge to either kiss him or snap his neck. _Something_ , just to feel a distraction from the open wound that is the Doctor. 

He keeps his hands firmly to himself, though. He’s... _oh_. He’s tired of humans getting in the way of his feelings, isn’t he? Tired of distractions. Even the laughter, the temporary thrill of getting into a fight, is starting to fade. A little chaos is a wonderful thing, but a lot of it...it’s like a drug. Those old hits just aren’t doing it for him anymore. He needs something bigger, or he needs to _stop_. 

“Thanks for the cigarette,” he says softly. “But I think I need to go now.” 

It’s definitely rude, but he barely waits for an answer before drifting past Ben and back out into the street. At the end of the day, he’s just another human- an uncommonly nice one, but not one that really matters. It’s odd- the Master knows they’re all individual people, all so unique, but he can’t help mentally drawing out the patterns they all share. He knows almost exactly how all of these people are going to behave. He’s _bored_. 

He drops the remains of his cigarette numbly onto the floor, pressing his boot into it until the dull orange embers go out. Twenty five years still to go, and somehow he’s bored of chaos. He _lives_ on chaos. 

Still half lost in his own thoughts, the Master wanders out into the street, ignoring the screech of several cars that have to stop hastily to avoid hitting him. Like he’d even care if they did. Like it would _matter_. 

He walks all the way back to his flat in that state, barely aware of his surroundings. It’s a dark, barely-decorated little studio, and it is _frustrating_ how unattached he feels to it. It’s far too hot in here- he’s left it unattended for a week with all the windows shut in summer, after all. 

Slowly lying back on his bed, the Master draws in a deep breath of stale, baking hot air. He’d hoped- no, he’d _assumed_ \- that trying to go back to his old ways would make this better. Living to cause chaos, to terrify lesser beings, to get a little revenge on the Earth in return for being stuck on it. 

But it’s not helping. It’s not Earth he’s angry at. 

The Doctor’s face drifts into his mind. That golden hair, made all the more gorgeous when messed up by the wind. Bright hazel eyes that sparkle like jewels, that glitter with a vindicated sort of malice in a way that is so beautiful, and so terrifying. Her body had felt so alive when he’d pressed her up against the edge of the Eiffel Tower- like she’d known he could push her off, like the danger had only made it all the more fun for her. 

Oh, she’s so like him this time around. The Master wonders how she’s doing with her companions, whether she finds them as predictable as he finds most of humanity. He wonders if she feels as grey inside as he does when they aren’t together, or if he’s giving himself too much credit to even dare to dream that such a thing might be true. 

He closes his eyes, picturing the next time they will meet. The sparks that will fly. And just for a moment, he feels like himself- the heavy emptiness lifts, and he almost wants to jump up and start pacing. The Doctor’s effect on him is _electric_. 

Oh, he loves her. He despises everything that she is made of, and he is deeply, intensely, irrevocably in love with every fibre of her being. She is twisted around his hearts, she is part of him, and it makes him ache and burn and feel _alive_. 

The Master’s eyes snap open again. The new millennium is coming up- Earth is about to get _busy_. More aliens, more Doctors, more trouble. And if the Doctor makes him feel alive...well, he’s just going to have to chase them. Damn the consequences; he hasn’t felt a sense of purpose like this since the ‘70s. 

There’s a newfound sense of clarity in his hearts. The Master takes a deep breath- then he leaps up, throws open the window, and inhales the warm night air instead. London’s chaotic enough even without him, he thinks, hearing the familiar wail of a police siren speeding by on the street below. He’s been too focused on the humans; he’s let them become boring and predictable. And he’s had enough. He _deserves_ to think about himself, surely. 

He deserves to get _some_ pleasure out of this exile. It’s been far too long. He’s practically built for the Doctor, after all; why not embrace it? Chase them, find them, do whatever the hell he wants with them. 

One quarter of a century left to go, and the Master is _determined_ not to waste it. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed this one! comments and kudos are very very much appreciated as always <3


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